Creating New Sprint Backlog Items

There are a number of ways to create Sprint Backlog Items:

1. Right-click on the "Work Items" Team Explorer folder or through the Visual Studio "Team" menu
2. Right-click on a Product Backlog item listed in the result of an "All Product backlog Items" query and choose "Add Related Work Item"
3. Publish new Sprint Backlog items from an Excel spreadsheet - covered in Using Excel to work with the Sprint Backlog

Although methods 1 and 3 work well, they leave out the important step of linking or relating the Sprint Backlog item to a Product Backlog item and this has to achieved by an additional step. Method 2 is the most natural method for Sprint Backlog task creation as the Team can add each task as it is identified while working through the Product Backlog items in Sprint Planning.

The screenshot below shows a new Sprint Backlog item being created that will automatically be related to the Product backlog item that it is helping to deliver.

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To create a new Sprint Backlog item that is independent of any Product Backlog item, right click on the Work Items folder of your Scrum project in the Team Explorer window. A window will appear that may offer the option to "Add Sprint Backlog Item" in which case select this option. Alternatively if this option is not available you will find it in a further window by selecting "Add Work Item". See the screenshot below:

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Having initiated the creation of a new Sprint Backlog item via team Explorer, a "New Sprint Backlog Item" tab will appear with the following fields:

Field Name	Type	Required	Description
Title	Text		Name for the Sprint Backlog task
Area	Area Path		Allows categorisation of task into "Areas" that can be setup in the Team - Team Project Settings - Areas and Iterations menu
Sprint	Iteration Path		Indicates the Sprint in which this task is being worked on
Estimated Effort	Number		The estimated effort to complete this task in hours
Work remaining	Number		Updated by team members on a daily basis as the amount of work to complete changes due to progress or issues encountered
Team	List		Indicates which team are responsible for a task (if running multiple teams). Teams are setup with the List Manager tab of the Team Project Portal
Task Priority	List		Allows the team to set an order for working through Sprint Tasks if required. The list can be overridden with numeric values outside the range of the list
Owned By	List		A Team Member selects their name from the list when they assign themselves this task.
Work Remaining	Number		The Team Member who currently has the task assigned should update the work remaining regularly to provide better Sprint Burndown data - at least once per day
Current Status	Workflow		Tracks the status of the SB item, moving from Not Done - In Progress - Ready For Test - Done or Deferred or Deleted. When the state moves to Done, the Work Remaining field is automatically set to zero
Description	Tab/Text		This should be a sentence describing the task in enough detail that it is clearly recognisable. This is not a formal requirement specification
History	Tab/RO		Shows the system generated change history of the task. The history data can be manually augmented by the addition of text which itself becomes part of the change history
Links	Tab/Links		Normally used to view, add or remove links to a parent Product Backlog item, but can also be used to add links to Source Control Changesets, Versioned Items, Test Results and Hyperlinks
File Attachments	Tab/Files		Used for attaching relevant documents to the task

It is possible to create a new Sprint Backlog Item through Team Explorer with just the title entered. This provides the flexibility for the remaining fields to be added later. For example, the "Owned By" field will be selected when a Team Member takes on the task.